Hydro to heat converter ???

[kaminski]

Been doing alot of reading around the site and I'm looking to install a wood boiler in the basement and run the first and 2nd floor furnaces with a heat exchanger in the plenums. The basement is a walkout and I will probally want to finish it at some point, don't think a gassification boiler would look good in the middle of the room. I saw these "Hydro to Heat Converters" http://www.hydro-to-heat-convertor.com/ and have only found one article on the site with very little information. I like the idea of this unit because it would look good in a finished family room. My other option would be to install a wood boiler in the basement, and then down the road when I finish the basement move the boiler to the garage (would need to run a chimney outside the house) or possibily in a shed. I'm not necessarly looking to go 100% wood ( I don't mind burning some propane), but I do have a large supply of free wood (thanks to a landscaping friend of mine) and would like some "free heat"

Background:
1year old center entrance colonial,2x6 walls, 3000sf, 1 forced hot air furnace in the basement to heat the first floor, 1 in the attic to heat the 2nd floor

I would like to try to stay under $7000 for the setup, installation would be by me

Also I live in Massachusetts which I guess has some different rules on which boilers can be installed

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks, Kevin

 

[Tony H]

What about building a boiler room in the basement with outside and inside access doors ? That is pretty much the optimal installation able to load wood from outside and able to go down and tend to the boiler in slippers and pj's. This solution lets you keep everything inside and the room does not need to be all that large although its nice to be able to keep a face cord or so of wood there at the ready. If you don't have space to devote to a boiler room go ahead and install the boiler elsewhere now rather than try to move it later .... they are large heavy and plumbing does not travel well. Garages have some special rules and will normally require a boiler room or some other method of separation from the vehicle space so check this out with your local building dept before you build.
I don't know much about the hydro to heat to heat unit but I am a little concerned about anything they give few details on. Most of the boilers discussed here have a proven track record so you pretty much know what you are getting.
7000 might be very tough to do unless you get a used unit.

 

[Dune]

What about a wood burning hot air furnace instead of a boiler? Easier to install and more likely to fit your budget. Why do you want to still burn propane? Do you get that for free too?

 

[kaminski]

I like the idea of the boiler room next to the house with door from the house to the boiler room and boiler room to the outside, I have to put some thought into where to do that. I thought about the furnace idea, but the current chimney in the basement is on the other side of the basement from where the current furnace is, and it wouldn't get me any heat to the 2nd floor of the house.

 

[Gooserider]

Looks like an interesting idea, but I'm not sure just how well it would work... The units are pretty that's for sure, which is something that not many of the central heating boxes can claim.

However, there are also issues...

1. While they talk about being clean burning, there is no real discussion about HOW they achieve this. I didn't see any sort of secondary combustion air tubes, baffles or any other sort of secondary combustion technology that I recognized in the cutaway. They certainly aren't doing downdrafting, and don't appear to be trying to achieve gasification.... While the water coil does enter in the bottom, and thus would be preheated by the time it reaches the top, they are still putting a comparitively cold tube of water in the area most wood stoves use for secondary burning... Bottom line, I would be worried about their potentially being smoke dragons...

2. While they mention several UL and CSA certs, they don't mention ASME, which would be needed to run a closed system in MA (though it may be possible to run a "high tank" open system) More significantly to me, is that even though they are an EU import, I don't see any mention of EU issued certs, such as EN-303-5, which is the standard that the other Euroboilers brought into the US have to meet... Don't know if this is an oversight, or they are exempt from that standard due to the design, or what.... However the importer seems to be running out of MA, so it would be possible to check out fairly easily.

3. While the units themselves look great, one of the things that goes into a hydronic system is that wall full of "other plumbing" - the pumps, fill valves, expansion tanks and so on - While it's a thing of functional beauty, to the uninitiated it's probably even less appealing than a boiler would be... You would need to figure out some sort of plan on how to hide all that extra plumbing - presumably by building out some sort of mini boiler room to hold the plumbing with the unit sticking out through the wall...

4. While they make no mention of it, and only a few passing mentions of the entire concept of output control, that style of unit fairly screams that it would need some major storage and expansion protection - supposedly their "boiler" section only holds about a gallon of water - wouldn't take a lot to make that boil I would think, so without some serious storage I'd imagine the unit would be constantly going on and off idle...

Gooserider